He could go without sleep for forty-eight hours, and when he slept he could sleep anywhere, on the moment.
Filling his saddle-bags with three days' rations, two canteens of water, he set off on a hagin, or racing camel, for Allaha, three hundred miles inland as the crow flies.

It was his intention to ride straight down to the desert and across this to Colonel Hare's camp, if such a thing now existed.

A dromedary in good condition can make from sixty to eighty miles a day; and the beast Ahmed had engaged was of Arab blood.

In four days he expected to reach the camp.

If Winnie had not yet arrived, he would take the road, meet her, warn her of the dangers which she was about to face, and convey her to the sea-port.
If it was too late, he would send the camel back with a trusted messenger to the colonel, to advise him.
They watched him depart in a cloud of dust, and then played the most enervating game in existence--that of waiting; for they had decided to wait till they heard from Ahmed before they moved.
Four nights later, when Ahmed arrived at the bungalow, he found conditions as usual.